- Milton Friedman said it was okay to go entirely off the gold standard, and Nixon did it. We can now reach the orbit of Pluto merely by printing stacks of money.
- Milton Friedman said it was okay to deregulate business and reduce the unions, and Reagan did it.
- Milton Friedman said it was okay to invent exotic, unconventional financial instruments like derivatives & CDS's, and Wall Street and government regulators swallowed it hook, line and sinker.
- Milton Friedman said it was okay to indulge in virtually unchecked speculation and leveraging debt, and virtually everybody in the world jumped in it.
- Collectively, we decided that cheating on school tests was okay, so naturally we cheated on mortgage loan applications with the full assistance of the brokerages and banks.
Bottom line, I blame it all on the business cycle, bad luck and the current sitting President.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve
Note: by the term "Milton Friedman" I mean not just the man himself, but also the University of Chicago and all those academic acolytes of Friedman who so enthusiastically swallowed his Kool-Aid.